by Molly Thynne
“It was the night before I went to Carlisle to stay with the Campbells. I didn’t tell her why I was going, because we’d agreed that it was better for her not to talk about the whole thing. We hadn’t mentioned John or anything, but, when I said good night, she looked at me in such a queer way and said, somehow as if she knew it was true: ‘Don’t worry, Cynthia, John will never be convicted. I’m certain of it.’”
Fayre stared at her in astonishment.
“Sybil said that! Did she give any reason for it?”
“None, but she seemed so curiously certain. Almost as if she knew something. She didn’t say any more and she looked so desperately ill and tired that I just went. Do you think she had some sort of second-sight, Uncle Fayre? People do do that sort of thing when they’ve been very ill, don’t they? I’m certain she wasn’t just saying it to reassure me.”
The worried lines on Fayre’s face deepened.
“I don’t know,” he said, “and I can’t understand it. I was under the impression that she was worrying about the whole thing more than was good for her. It never occurred to me that she was in the least hopeful. I only hope she’s right. You know she’s been very ill again?”
“Yes. Edward wrote to Bill. He was a fool to whisk her off like that before she was really fit. It was Dr. Gregg’s fault, really, for saying she could go. It’s funny, but he felt just as you did about the case. He said she must be got away from the atmosphere of the whole thing because she was wearing herself to a thread over it and would never have a chance of pulling up unless she got right away. And she’s the only person who’s given me any real hope!”
“You’re very fond of Sybil, aren’t you?” asked Fayre thoughtfully.
Cynthia stared at him.
“Of course. She’s been a perfect brick to me always and she’s a dear, anyway. You know, whenever I’ve got hopelessly fed up with things at home she’s had me in London for weeks together, and she was an angel about John from the beginning. I’d do a good deal for Sybil, and I’m not naturally an unselfish person,” she finished frankly.
Fayre did not allude to the matter again and, when Cynthia announced her intention of going to the Keans’ on the chance of being allowed to see Sybil, he walked with her to the door, but he did not offer to go in. Instead, he mounted a bus and went out to Richmond. Arrived there, he made for the Park and walked until he was tired out. It was late when he entered the station and took the train back to London and he was worn out with hard exercise and lack of food, but he had at last come to a part solution of his difficulties. He had some supper at the club and then literally fell into bed. And this time he slept.
Next morning he rang up Cynthia, whom he found just starting for her dentist’s. He picked her up there after her appointment and carried her off to Kensington Gardens.
He waited until they had found chairs under the trees and then went straight to the point.
“You’re an unusual person, Cynthia,” he said appreciatively. “I’ve kidnapped you in the middle of a busy morning and you’ve not asked a single question.”
“I’ve been worrying, though,” she answered. “Do you realize that you’ve been looking as if you’d lost a shilling and found sixpence, as old Mrs. Doggett would say, ever since I’ve been in town? I nearly asked you before what was the matter, but I thought I’d wait till you came out with it yourself. There is something wrong, isn’t there?”
“Nothing that affects you or Leslie,” he hastened to assure her. “But you are right, I have been worried about something. The trouble is not my own, or I’d put the whole thing before you, and I don’t mind admitting that I should be glad of an outside opinion on it. But that’s out of the question. I’m sorry to be so mysterious.”
Cynthia nodded. Her face showed complete understanding.
“Poor Uncle Fayre!” she said. “I know how you feel. One bothers and bothers over a thing until one can’t see it straight at all and then one loses faith in one’s own judgment. It’s quite true, an outsider is a help sometimes.”
“It’s a help I shall have to do without in this instance,” he admitted reluctantly. “Let’s forget it and talk of something pleasant.”
They chatted desultorily for a while, laughing and joking and taking a genuine pleasure in each other’s company, as people with a keen sense of humour will, even though tragedy be close upon their heels, but Cynthia never ceased to be aware that there was an object in their meeting and knew that he was only waiting for an opportunity to broach the subject that was really on his mind.
He did so at last, so casually that, if she had not been on the alert, she might have missed the significance of his question. He had brought the conversation round to Sybil Kean and her illness.
“If only she doesn’t have a relapse now,” he said thoughtfully. “If would be a bit of bad luck for us if Edward were to throw up the case.”
Cynthia turned to him with something like panic in her eyes.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she exclaimed. “Of course if she were really ill he wouldn’t be able to go to Carlisle. He’d never leave her.”
“I’m afraid he wouldn’t. He’s utterly wrapped up in her. Sybil is a fascinating person, but I must admit that Edward’s devotion was a revelation to me. I did not know he had it in him to care so much for any one.”
“I don’t believe anybody else would ever have understood him as Sybil does,” said Cynthia slowly. “He’s not an easy person to know.”
Fayre gazed reflectively at the tips of his well-polished boots.
“You’ve seen a lot of Sybil in the last few years, haven’t you?” he asked suddenly.
Cynthia knew that the question for which she had been waiting had come at last, but she could not see its point.
“Yes,” she answered wonderingly. “I’ve stayed with her in London, you know, as well as seeing her often at Staveley. Why do you ask?”
“What do you really think of those two, Cynthia?” Then, seeing the genuine bewilderment in her face: “I’m curious about Sybil. Edward is, and always has been, absolutely devoted and there can be no question that, from his point of view, their marriage has been a very happy one. But what about Sybil?” Cynthia’s face cleared.
“You mean, does she love him?” she said frankly. “It’s funny you should ask that. I was puzzling over it last night. Eve Staveley told me a long time ago that Sybil had never got over her first husband’s death and that she believed that it was only Edward’s insistence that made her marry him. Well, I was wondering last night whether she was right.”
“You think that Sybil’s fonder of Edward than any of us realize?”
In spite of his efforts he could not subdue the urgency in his voice.
“Honestly, I believe she is fonder of him than she realizes herself,” answered Cynthia slowly. “If you asked her, she’d probably tell you that she had never forgotten her first husband and could never care for any one else and she’d think she was speaking the truth, but I saw Sybil once when she was really anxious about Edward and I’m certain she cares far more than people think. You see, I’d just got engaged to John then and I suppose I was in the mood to notice that sort of thing,” she finished, with a swift, shy glance at his intent face.
He nodded.
“I expect you’re right. At any rate, I’m prepared to trust to your intuition.”
He returned to the study of his boot-tips and, for a minute or two, they sat in silence. It was broken by Cynthia.
“Then it was Sybil you were worrying about,” she remarked calmly.
Fayre jumped.
“I have been worrying about her ever since I got back to England,” he began mendaciously; but she interrupted him ruthlessly.
“The thing that has been bothering you and that you said you wished you could consult some outside person about has something to do with Edward and Sybil Kean, hasn’t it? I’m not going to ask indiscreet questions, Uncle Fayre, but Sybil’s my friend as well as yours and it’s on
ly fair to tell me if she’s in any real trouble.”
Fayre hesitated for a moment and then he spoke frankly. “As I said before, I can’t tell you what it is all about. But I can say this. There is something that, sooner or later, I shall have to tell Edward, something that affects him so nearly that, I honestly believe, were he to hear it now, would cause him to throw up the case. I would do anything to keep the knowledge from him altogether, but I cannot. My only problem is, whether I am justified in keeping this news back till after the trial. That’s what I have been trying to decide and I’ve made up my mind at last. So far as I can see I shall be harming nobody if I hold the news over until after the trial is over, and I have definitely decided to do so. But I’ve got to a point at which I hardly dare trust my own judgment.”
“Does Sybil know of this, Uncle Fayre?”
“Good Heavens, no! If she did I think it would kill her.”
“And it will really make no difference to her if you keep this back till John’s trial is over?” she persisted.
“None, that I can see. In fact, my instinct is to put off telling Edward as long as possible, but that’s simply because I shrink from hurting either of them. He’s got to be told in the end, but, what with the impending strain of the trial and all the worry he has gone through on Sybil’s account lately, this seems the worst moment to spring bad news on him. Grey says that the case is one of the first on the list at the Carlisle Assizes and should come on early next month.”
At the thought of the trial Cynthia’s face blanched and she clenched her hands tightly on her lap to stop their trembling. Fayre realized that it was kinder to ignore her agitation.
“As I said,” he went on quietly, “I made up my mind last night to hold this thing over. You can rest assured that, as far as I am concerned, nothing will happen to put a spoke in Edward’s wheel and, if we can count on him, it will be half the battle.”
He gave her a few minutes in which to recover herself and then saw her back to her aunt’s house, after which he strolled slowly back to the club. On the way he pondered over Sybil Kean’s words to the girl at Staveley. He could not reconcile them with her evident anxiety when she spoke to him about Leslie. No doubt she had seen that Cynthia was near to the breaking-point and had lied nobly in the hope of reassuring her. And yet that wasn’t like Sybil, as he knew her.
She was the last person to kindle a false hope deliberately.
His mind was still dwelling on her as he picked up the little pile of letters that awaited him at the club and it was with a shock that he recognized her handwriting on one of them. He opened it eagerly. Inside was a closed envelope, unaddressed, with a covering letter from Sybil herself which ran:
“Hatter dear, the flowers were lovely. It was like you to think of them. In a day or two I shall have got rid of the doctor and be able to thank you in person, instead of in this silly note which looks so much more shaky than I really am. I am picking up wonderfully, but it was a close shave this time, Hatter, and it has made me think. Don’t tell Edward, but I have a strong feeling that the next attack will be my last. I want you to do me a favour and put the enclosed among your most private papers. If I should die before John Leslie’s trial is over and if he should be convicted I want you to open it and read it and then show it to Edward. If John Leslie is acquitted or if I am alive at the close of the trial I am trusting you to burn it unread. I expect you think I am mad, and sometimes, lately, I have wondered whether my brain is not going, but you are the only friend I have whose loyalty I know I can utterly depend on. I know I can trust you and that you will do what I ask unquestioningly. Good-by, my dear, till we meet. They won’t let me write any more. Sybil.”
Fayre stood staring blankly at the letter and the enclosure; then he crossed to a writing-table and wrote in his small, neat hand across the envelope: “In the event of my death, to be destroyed unread.”
This done, he put it carefully away in his pocket-book with the snapshot Miss Allen had given him.
“She knows,” he told himself heavily. “And she has kept the truth from Edward. No wonder the strain of it has almost killed her!”
CHAPTER XXI
Sybil Kean’s amazing letter left Fayre in a condition of mingled bewilderment and relief. Out of all the tangle of events that he had been trying in vain to unravel one strand at least had inexplicably straightened itself. Lady Kean was not only already in possession of the information he had stumbled on so unexpectedly, information which he had hoped against hope might possibly be kept from her, but she had deliberately withheld it from her husband. That the truth was contained in the letter which she had asked him only to open in the event of her death he had no doubt, and that she was relying on him to break the news as mercifully as possible to Kean was equally evident. Little difference it would make to Edward, Fayre reflected grimly, once he had lost the one being in whom his whole life was centred.
His last action that night was to switch on the light over his bed and read her letter again for the tenth time, amazed at the strength and devotion of the woman he had thought he knew so well, but whom he had after all understood so little. He realized how greatly he had underestimated her affection for Kean and how misled he had been in concluding that her heart was irretrievably buried in her first husband’s grave, and he wondered by what feminine logic she had managed to reconcile her conscience with the deception she had practised on Kean. The one thing that puzzled him in her letter was her stipulation that he should not read the enclosure in the event of Leslie’s acquittal. Try as he would, he could see no connection between the trial and the information he believed the enclosure to contain. One thing was obvious: at the earliest opportunity he must see Sybil Kean and tell her that he had surprised her secret. That she was, literally, worrying herself into the grave he had no doubt.
As it turned out, all his plans were frustrated. For the next three days Fayre called in vain at the house in Westminster, only to be told that Lady Kean was allowed to see no one and, on the fourth, that which the doctor had been dreading occurred, she had another heart attack even more violent than the last.
For a week she hovered between life and death and then, almost miraculously, took a turn for the better. Kean was invisible whenever Fayre called at the house and Grey, who was in hourly dread that Lady Kean would die, confessed to feeling more and more pessimistic as to Leslie’s chances.
“It was an amazing piece of luck getting Sir Edward at all,” he admitted to Fayre. “With such strong evidence against Leslie I never thought he would have acted. We’ve got Lady Kean to thank for that, I fancy, and perhaps, for her sake, even if the worst happens, he’ll pull himself together and do his best for us. I know he’s almost superhuman when it comes to work, but, unless she takes a turn for the better soon, I shall begin to regret that we didn’t brief some one else.”
“And we’ve got no further with the Page clue than when we first started,” reflected Fayre ruefully.
The clerk Grey had sent to collect evidence as to the car which had been held up at York had reported a complete failure. Except for the first letter and number the car had entirely failed to answer to the description of the Page car. It was a two-seater, the number-plate had been intact and there was no sign of any damage to either of the guards, and they had had to face the fact that they had been following yet another blind alley.
In addition to his other anxieties, Fayre was troubled about Cynthia. The girl had faced things nobly, but already she was beginning to show signs of strain and Fayre dreaded the coming ordeal for her. Her mother had written to her peremptorily ordering her to go home. Cynthia, lost to everything but Leslie’s danger, had taken no notice of her mother’s letter. Fortunately, her father’s sister, with whom she was staying, had proved more humane and had merely stipulated that the girl should stay in her house until the trial was over, realizing that she was not in a state to brook opposition. She welcomed Fayre’s visits and, at her suggestion, he persuaded Cynthia to motor with him ou
t into the country for a few hours every day.
A few days after Sybil Kean had been declared out of danger Grey rang him up suggesting that they should meet for lunch.
“I’ve heard from Sir Edward,” he said as soon as he saw Fayre. “I’m to meet him this afternoon and he would like to see Lady Cynthia. Could you bring her round to his Chambers at about four o’clock? I gather Lady Kean really has turned the corner, so luck may be with us, after all.”
Before sitting down to lunch Fayre rang up Cynthia and arranged to call for her. Grey followed him into the telephone-box.
“Tell her I’ve seen Mr. Leslie and he’s in fine form. If he can keep his pluck up till next month he ought to make a good impression.”
“How did you really find Leslie?” asked Fayre as they sat down.
“Just as I said. He’s a plucky young beggar. I think he’s more worried about her than about himself. Wanted to know how she was looking, and all that sort of thing. Said it wasn’t only the war that came hardest on the women. They’re a fine couple.”
Fayre nodded absently. He was feeling horribly depressed and wished with all his heart that the whole wretched business were over.
“I don’t suppose Sir Edward’s in a laughing mood, but, if he were, he’d get a certain sardonic amusement out of the Page episode,” went on Grey. “My man came back from the North yesterday. He’s been kept up there on some other business till now. He told me a funny thing.”
“About the car that was held up?” asked Fayre rather wearily.
He found it difficult to see anything amusing in connection with the Draycott murder.
“No; that belonged to a harmless little commercial traveller. But when he was looking over the back reports in search of a clue to our man he caught another fish altogether, Sir Edward Kean himself! He got hung up at York on March 14th for traveling without side-lights.”
